Abstract
This studyemploystheestablishedstylometric
method, Burrows’Delta,forisiXhosa-a
South AfricanlanguagefromtheNgunigroup
- toassessitseffectivenessinlow-resourced
settings. Itisareplicationofauthorship
attributionfromthestudybySavoyin2019,
which focusedonwell-establishedlanguages
such asEnglishandGreek,alongwithother
studies. Astructuredcorpusoftheepistles
wasdevelopedatthebook-chapter-verse
level,allowingprecisereferencingand
reproducibility.Thedistancesbetweenepistles
were calculatedusingBurrows’Deltawith
the normalisationofthez-scoreofthemost
frequent words.Thefindingsbroadlyalign
with previousstylometricstudies,indicating
partial coherenceamongtheundisputed
PaulineepistlesintheisiXhosatranslation.
In particular,Galatiansand2Corinthians
exhibitrelativelyclosestylisticproximity,
while Romansand1Corinthiansshow
greater separation,reflectinginternalstylistic
heterogeneity ratherthanasinglecompact
Paulinecluster.Theresultsdemonstratethat
Burrows’Deltacanbeappliedacrosslanguages
with suitableadaptations.Thissupportsthe
future applicationofauthorshipattributionto
other isiXhosatextsandgenres,fosteringa
connection betweencomputationalstylometry
and indigenouslanguageresearch.